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Within minutes, the sky had turned a milky white.
Sheets of murky rain pour from above. Harsh sunlight refracts off the wet ground from inside a cloud of blinding fog. Ice and rough sand fill the air, and the girl's each breath burns with the taste of iron.
She waits under the shelter of an old tree's branches, her nose and mouth being shielded behind her scarf. The scent of the puddles sizzling on the forest floor wasn't dissimilar to stomach acid — it could've led her to retch.
Her monsters had been incapacitated as the weather began. Her bag was emptied of medicine. In the distance, her gaze focuses on a panicked crowd of Trainers rushing towards the Center, feverishly fighting to get inside its doors. They grab and push and pull each other like animals.
She's too far away to hear their shouts over the wind.
A deep crack of thunder rumbles through the nauseatingly warm air. From beneath her safe haven, she warily reaches out an open hand, and winces away as the hot raindrops sting her bare skin. She draws back a bright smattering of scarlet blood, spreading slowly into the creases of her palm. The watch on her wrist ticks.
Gracelessly, she cleans her hand on her dress, and waits for an end.